LETTER: Teaching phonics is not a panacea

Paul Aizley Las Vegas

1 year ago

FILE - Lynnea Lamb, 11, helps her brother Deon, 5, read a book during the Reading Rangers Summe ... — FILE – Lynnea Lamb, 11, helps her brother Deon, 5, read a book during the Reading Rangers Summer Reading Program at Boulevard Mall in Las Vegas on Saturday, May 19, 2018. Students were given the opportunity to meet Reading Rangers superhero characters and pick up free books. Andrea Cornejo Las Vegas Review-Journal @DreaCornejo

In response to Mona Charen’s Tuesday column supporting phonics reading instruction:

The idea that English is a phonetic language is laughable. One symbol, one sound is a great idea. But that’s not English. It is also not French. Spanish, German and Italian come closer. Our kids have a spelling contest and so do the French. In the other countries most kids learn to spell words quickly and correctly because letters either separately or in certain combinations have unique sounds. In English a combination of phonetic learning and “sight reading” is needed. How else can a kid distinguish wind from wind? And after the spelling bee how does one decide which one won?